Disability and Identity Flashcards
How is disability linked to identity?
The profile of those who are disabled has improved by things such as the Paralympics improving public opinions on how disability shapes an identity.
DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT 1995
Gave legal protection and enforceable rights to those who are disabled.
RIDLEY “DOES DISABILITY MAKE YOU FEEL AWKWARD”
2/3 of people felt awkward talking to a disabled person.
43% don’t know anyone that is disabled.
Less than 1/5 have disabilities that are congenital (a disease present from birth).
What is the medical model?
Leads to victim blaming, the problem lies with the disabled individual rather than the society that hasn’t met the needs.
View of disability as a medical problem.
Limitations made by impairment.
SHAKESPEARE “DISABILITY AND IDENTITY”
Disabled people were socialised to seeing themselves are victims.
People with an impairment may have an investment in their own incapacity as it becomes the rationale for their own failure.
Major factors/obstacles of forming a positive disabled identity.
Disabled people are socialised to view themselves as inferior.
Disabled people are isolated and can’t form a strong identity.
What is the social model?
Disability is socially constructed.
Social and physical barriers facing those with disabilities.
Access denied to those with mobility problems.
“Disabled” is carried with a stigma that affects interactions between disabled people and others, this creates a master status they learn to see themselves in terms of their importance - and this transcends into all other aspects of identity and people are judged.
Many peoples disabilities defines their identity.
GILL “RECONCILING YOUR IDENTITY”
Polio survivor and disabled later in life.
Reconciling your identity as a disabled Pearson with previously held notions about what being disabled means is a common hurdle.
MURUGAMI “CONSTRUCTING A SELF IDENTITY”
A disabled person has the ability to construct a self identity that accepts impairment, but is independent of it.
They are a person first with their impairment being a characteristic of their identity.
ZOLA “HOW WE DESCRIBE OURSELVES”
Disabled through polio.
The vocabulary used to describe ourselves is borrowed from a discriminatory-able-bodied society. We are de-formed, dis-eased, dis-abled,dis-ordered etc..
